[Brushtail]

Howdy everyone, since the Australian government neither respects its citizens nor our rights they have increased both physical and electronic surveillance powers. This is occurring under the guise of the fight again terrorism and organized crime. Our government while increasing surveillance powers have introduced fusion centers which essentially is a hub for raw intelligence data and processing into useable Intel. This process is not selective and the type of information they use is not just from government entities, they also use corporate data. This may seem a little paranoid but by partaking in activities that are, at the moment, not accepted in mainstream politics or society, security is a major concern.

That been said our members should start developing online security habits that provide anonymity and data protection. Its my intention to persuade Australian members to adopt best practices to ensure everyone's security and continued contributions.

Firstly encryption, in Australia we have a banned book list which includes drug manufacturing material, e.g. grow guides. It is best practice for members to encrypt these files on their computer. True Crypt (https://www.truecrypt.org/) is a neat piece of free software, able to create ghost drives and encrypted volumes. The software can do this on both mounted HDD and USB keys. The government is considering laws that make it illegal for citizens to NOT divulge personal password keys, if this occurs a person can just forget said keys.

Communication on the internet is a daily activity but normal channels of communication are very susceptible to interception. Its naive to think talking over hush mail provides any anonymity or security, a recent international drug case proved this without a doubt(adambomb). That been said some communications can be sent over normal media, e.g. chat clients, IRC but for more sensitive dialogue encryption is a must. PGP is a great program and very effective when used properly (https://www.gnupg.org/,https://www.gpg4win.org/) and comes in both flavours windows and Linux. Read the additional documentation to understand how the program works.

TOR(https://www.torproject.org/) is essentially a low-latency anonimizing client, routing traffic through multiple TOR nodes. It’s easy to download and use, its even bundled for an easy install and go. That been said only the traffic configured to be routed through tor will do so. It is possible to route email and IRC clients through TOR. Another great TOR project is TORBOX(https://trac.torproject.org/projects...iki/doc/TorBOX) which uses dual VMware to reduce potential attack surfaces and create sandboxes to reduce the damage potential hackers can do e.g. reveal IP. There are other services i2p, freenet etc that are worth researching out.

There are even Linux distros that are solely for security and anonymity. Two that are highly recommended are tails & liberte (https://dee.su/liberte/
https://tails.boum.org/). These distros are light weight and can be loaded onto a live CD or USB. Which makes it great when using multiple computers at multiple locations, just boot from USB or CD. A persistent volume can be created on a live USB key so files can be saved from separate sessions.

Online security is evolving and new programs are been created to provide these services. Its worth keeping up to date with security and anonymizing solutions. Please if there are any IT professionals or people skilled in this area, contribute, this is merely an outline of potential tools.

stay green

bt

[PhenoMenal]

+1 another vote for TrueCrypt (which is FREEWARE - https://www.truecrypt.org), it's not only very powerful in utilizing the most powerful encryption algorithms available such as AES, but it's also very easy to use, so even if you're a newb when it comes to such things please don't be scared to give it a try - you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[b00m]

Nice post there Brushtail
All members on here should be aware of and practice safe online surfing protocols
+1 on Linux Distros

[governmentspy]

so best way to surf sites like this is to just use https://www.icmag.com ???
or should i use a proxy anonimiser like www.hidemyass.com ????

currently i use only https.
free proxy sites often (ever?) wont use https, also i dnt trust those sites with my login details ....

true crypt or linux doesnt help me here does it??

[b00m]

Originally Posted by governmentspy

so best way to surf sites like this is to just use https://www.icmag.com ???
or should i use a proxy anonimiser like www.hidemyass.com ????
currently i use only https.
free proxy sites often (ever?) wont use https, also i dnt trust those sites with my login details ....
true crypt or linux doesnt help me here does it??

A couple of things to do:-
1. Change your settings in your web browser to not remember any History and and to not save any Passwords
2. Manually enter the web page's URL https://www.icmag.com and manually enter your login and password when you want to come here

If you have a spare old computer with a couple of network cards in it, you can create your own Linux firewall and proxy server with software like Clark Connect and do away with the free proxy servers on the internet

[gr0wm3]

No offence but the two network card bullshit isnt entirely accurate. (regardless of the lin*x penguine in your display pic).... I understand network security ..... i run debian, openbsd and slak systems.... (aside from other os's) .... sounds like discourse.... you sure you arent speakinbg of tunneling with the card ? ....

peace'

[b00m]

I'm no linux expert and I like to think I can understand network security enough to be able to surf the internet without leaving big digital footprints.
I have done the old box with 2 network cards before and used it as my home firewall and proxy server for yonks and never once had any issues.
Like I said I'm no expert and am just passing on info I know can work, if you know network security really well then please contribute to the thread and help answer some of the people's questions, it would be more appreciated especially from me as I will learn something new and won't get called out by the people that know

[High Country]

I think I'm fucked.

well, great stuff, Y 'all.

I do what BooM says. also don't consider myself any sort of target, cos, I ain't doing enuf stuff to bother Authority.

and if I was I wouldn't fucking write about it!!! (no nude pics of me or the missus on the internet, either!)

muted old fart type cheers ...

[gr0wm3]

To secure your connection online, it is important to purchase a pptp service with ssl (or another similiar service).... in a country that has poor cyber-laws (there are many lol) ..... these countries usually do not require for these services to retain server logs .... (there are many of these ... look around...) ... that way your isp cant be "man-in-the-middle" (therefore data communicated from your pc to the pptp service is encrypted) ... and no server logs to confirm you ever accessed any server (website etc).... this is how to gain anonymity online ...

Cheers crew,